Atelier Ayesha Confirmed for NA/EU 2013 Release

[Andromeda]

Announced a little while back, the latest in the Atelier series, Atelier Ayesha was confirmed to be picked up by NISA for release in the NA/EU regions. NISA had been publishing and localizing the Atelier series as well as most of GUST's games, but with the recent Koei Tecmo acquisition of GUST there was uncertainty of NISA would continue to localize their games.

Atelier Ayesha is a new setting, as the Arland trilogy finished with Meruru. The new setting also brought in a new character designer giving the game a different look from the Arland series. The game still retains the cel-shade, often anime inspired appearance, but it has become more pronounced with the new designer.

The story has Ayesha, an alchemy, in search of her sister. She travels the land looking for clues to where her sister went. Combat for the game has been update more from the Meruru combat, with it falling more in line with the PS2 era Mana Khemia series. However, a change for the series will allowing the characters to move to different positions in battle to get back attacks.

Other changes are in the alchemy system, which appear to be more complex and have more factors involved when crafting.

Another thing of note, is GUST continues to improve the visuals of their games with each iteration. Ayesha's characters models are definitely the best they've achieved with side by side comparisons of the 2D artwork coming almost indistinguishable.